Spinal obsession

Now it’s time for anxiety.

Saw the neurosurgeon on Thursday. Working from write-up on the MRI, it looked as if three weeks of intensive physical therapy might take care of things. Increased flexibility could help with the herniated disk and stenosis (C5-6) for now, but surgery might be down the road a ways.

Friday. Phone call. The MRI was delivered to the neurosurgeon’s office — now it looks as if PT would be a very bad idea. Besides the disk problem and enlarged vertebrae, my spinal cord is swollen.

This is a sign of spinal cord trauma. It seems I’d remember injuring my back to the point that the spinal cord would swell, but I can’t recall anything that would account for it, other than some jarring around while jet-skiing on the ocean last August. (The memorable injury during that trip was a serious sunburn that left me on crutches. Lesson: Sunscreen is for feet, too.)

According to the MRI, I should be in bone-crunching pain right now. We’re all baffled by this. Today it’s just the usual neck pinches, along with occasional crampish sensations in the back of my legs.

So now we’re looking at surgery ASAP. This coming week will bring an EMG, which tests the conductivity of the nerves (needles and electrodes in my arms), and a myelogram, which is a spinal tap with unpleasantness added (enforced immobility, dye that can lead to a week-long headache — all spread over a two day period).

If the test results are as expected, it’ll be surgery the following week.

I was not expecting this at all. Since yesterday I’ve been careening wildly between anxious and cranky. I’m overwhelmed with thinking about how to manage my classes while I’m out (how long will that be?), along with flashes from an overactive, highly visual imagination. I’m also hypervigilant in looking for signs of impending bone-crunching pain, even though the MRI was taken over a week ago. For all I know the swelling could have subsided by now.

But I’m allowing myself a day or so of panic. Then it’ll be time to channel it into actually getting some things accomplished so I can head into this without worries about my responsibilities.